


The Mad Queen

by redcandle17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-18
Updated: 2010-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei escapes the fate prophesied for her, but descends into madness after Daenerys seizes the Iron Throne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mad Queen

She sees the dead everywhere now. But Cersei doesn't say anything because she's learned speaking about them only causes her maid to flee in fright and the maester to come and force her to drink potions that make her sleep. So she sits by the single window of her tower cell and looks out at the river, trying to ignore the ghosts. They speak to her, though, and that makes it hard to ignore them.

Jaime is the worst. Her twin never shuts up. He's always accusing her of ruining his life and cursing her for a whore. In death he has two hands again and he's always waving them in her face, trying to goad her into slapping him. When she does slap him, he merely fades away and then reappears to laugh at her while her maid explains, as if to a lackwit child, that there is no one there.

Tyrion appears sometimes, too, to taunt her with how he murdered her sweet Joffrey. Everything she flings at him goes right through him so Cersei can only seethe with rage. At least the horrid dwarf never got to strangle her. Maggy the Frog was right about the loss of her children and her crown, but she was wrong about the rest of it. Cersei is alive and her brothers are dead. Her valonqar can never murder her. She's won.

"You must dress, my lady. The Queen has commanded your presence."

"I am the queen," Cersei reminds her. She is no king's daughter and her husband and her children are dead and she knows that leaves her without a claim to the Iron Throne, but she was born to be Queen. Her father told her so.

Elia Martell walks beside her as Cersei makes her way through the Red Keep. Cersei had hated her once, until the raven that brought word of the great tourney at Harrenhal and Lyanna Stark became the one she hated. Elia links her ghostly arm with Cersei's and sadly sighs that they should have been friends.

"I would have liked that, if only your mother hadn't stolen Rhaegar for you. I liked you when you visited the Rock."

_"I liked you, too. Even though you were unkind to your brother and the servants."_

"He killed my mother and the servants had no place trying to tell me what to do," Cersei protests.

_"And what of Melara? What did she do to make you do such a terrible thing to her?"_

"I didn't mean to!" Elia shouldn't even know about that but the dead know all.

_"You're not a good friend, Cersei."_

Elia fades away, leaving Cersei to approach the Iron Throne alone. Daenerys Targaryen is seated there, surrounded by savages and traitors. Her maid hisses at Cersei to curtsy and finally resorts to tugging at her skirts to force her down. Cersei kicks her. A queen curtsies to no one.

"Lady Cersei," Daenerys begins.

"Queen Cersei," Cersei corrects her. There's laughter from the nobles who've gathered to watch. Cersei regrets that she didn't burn the city to the ground as she had thought to do when word came of the impending Targaryen invasion. Jaime had distracted her and by the time he was gone, she'd forgotten her plans and could only lock herself in Maegor's Holdfast.

"Compassion should be shown to the mad and so I will spare your life. Tomorrow you will take holy vows and join the Silent Sisters."

_"You were always the Stranger's wife."_ Robert is there, his belly bloody where the boar tore him open.

_"Yes,"_ Jaime agrees. There's a big hole in his chest where her terrible champion cut his heart out for her.

"Go away," Cersei screams at them. "Go away. Burn in hell, both of you."

_"We're waiting for you, sweet sister. You'll burn with us."_

Guards drag her out of the hall and carry her back to her cell where the maester's waiting with his potions. The potions give her bad dreams. She's seated on the Iron Throne again and Jaime's railing at her, calling her mad. That terrible moment comes again when she remembers that she is the elder twin, that Jaime is also her valonqar. She gives the order to her champion and watches Jaime die and she can't wake up.


End file.
